


with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares

by getmean



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Pre-Canon, Sibling Bonding, Tarot Cards, okay those two are arguably the same for the hargreeves kids lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 16:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18097874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean
Summary: Diego watches him light a fresh cigarette off of the butt of his old one. “How’d you know I’d let you crash here?” He asks, voice low in the wake of Klaus’ admittance. The question softens the ugly, upset twist to Klaus’ mouth, and he rolls his eyes as he uncurls himself slightly, skinny wrist crooked just so as his cigarette wafts smoke around his head.“Because you always do.” He mutters.





	with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pensivebanana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensivebanana/gifts).



> this is a commission for my good friend ana, who wanted to see some sibling bonding between the Best hargreeves: diego and klaus :~)

The police radio crackles, the long strings of half-recognisable code eaten up by static as Diego curses to himself, grabbing it from the dashboard as it garbles another string of gibberish at him. He smacks it once, twice, and the voices surface from the static for a moment, _code six with a suspicious vehicle at the corner of…_

“Fuck.” Diego mutters, as the voices dip back out under the press of the bad connection. “Jesus, really?” He tosses the radio onto the passenger seat, where it lands amongst the abandoned takeout wrappers that litter it, next to the paperback he’s been carrying around for a month with the intention to really read it, this time. If there’s any clearer indication that it’s quitting time, it’s that. Or perhaps it’s the sun beginning to make its slow climb over the horizon, the sky lightening just so. Blue-black to barely grey. Jesus, Diego is tired. He scrubs his gloved hands over his face with a groan, and then turns the keys in the ignition, his car stuttering to life under him. If he can beat the rising sun and get into bed before it gets properly light out, he can almost convince himself what he’s doing is semi-functional. 

With that in mind, he sets the gas, and heads for home. 

———

Diego has to circle the gym twice before he finds a spot to park; dodging overeager meatheads on his way in, the box of donuts he’d bought on impulse tucked under his arm, as surreptitious as a bright pink box of carbs in a gym could be. Even the temple that was his body needed a day off, sometimes. The diner coffee he’d mistakenly thought would alleviate the headache pulsing behind his eyeballs feels like it’s burning a pure caustic hole into the lining of his empty stomach, and all he wants to do is throw something made of nothing but sugar and grease down on top of it.

The chatter of the police radio feels etched into the soft meat of his brain, and Diego is just turning over the events of his uneventful night as he rounds the corner and nearly walks right into Al, the often-surly and always up for a brawl owner of the gym. He pulls up short, fumbling the box of donuts as Al wastes no time in jabbing his finger right into the centre of Diego’s chest.

“Hey-” He manages, before Al barrels over him, all five foot of pissed off Italian grandpa. 

“You remember when I said this place weren’t a hotel, Hargreeves?” He gripes, punctuating Diego’s name with another poke at his chest. He seems to be waiting for an answer, so Diego nods, eyes just off over the top of Al’s head to avoid his gaze. His headache is spreading now; Diego imagines it like a hand inside his skull, twisting at the strings holding him together. He can’t cover the wince that follows as Al pokes him again, and says, “You can’t go around tellin’ every vagrant and junkie you’ve taken up with that this place’sa free bed, you hear me?”

Diego sighs, and holds his hands up in rigid surrender. The donut box buckles under his arm. “I hear ya, Al.”

One more jab to the sternum and he’s released, mind whirring with the possibilities of who Al had let into his apartment overnight as he takes the steps down to the boiler room two at a time, tucking the box of donuts under his elbow as he eases a knife from his belt. He hefts it, mind already half made up on who his surprise visitor may be even as he does so, but the knife is a reassuring weight in his hands and one he clings to as he nudges his door open with the toe of his boot, and slips inside. 

“Don’t shoot!” A very familiar voice calls out, and Diego lowers his knife with a sigh as the tension eases from his muscles. His headache is pounding worse than ever, and he barely casts a glance at his reflection in the mirror at the base of his steps for fear of how pale and drawn he probably looks. He swears he feels the pain spike as his gaze settles on none other than _Klaus_ , sprawled near upside down on his sofa, something wickedly amused in his grin as he slowly raises his hands in mock-surrender. Just as Diego had suspected.

Diego follows the long line of him, right down to his still-laced boots propped comfortably up on the sofa cushions. His skinny, hairy legs are pale against the black leather, shot out of the bottom of a skirt that looks like it hasn’t seen the inside of a washing machine in far too long. “Klaus,” He mutters, and makes a gesture of pure confusion towards the sofa, towards the cigarette burning down between his fingers, towards his whole general _self_ in Diego’s space. “What the fuck?”

Klaus rights himself, tipping ash all over himself and the couch, and Diego finds he can’t suppress his groan at that, even as Klaus holds his hands out towards him in supplication. “Diego,” He says, that maddening, ever-present smile tugging his mouth sideways as his eyes flick over him. “Now, Diego, I know you don’t like me smoking in the-”

Diego cuts him off. “Then why’d you do it, Klaus?” His voice lacks any of the heat he knows it takes to make Klaus feel sorry; he’s too exhausted, someone is jamming an ice pick between his eyes and his stomach is curdling from that fucking diner coffee and his pitiful, anxiety-inducing, _exasperating_ brother is here getting street dirt all over his goddamn sofa cushions. “Why are you _here?_ ”

Klaus’ smile falters, and Diego grimaces, that sickly drop of worry settling into his stomach at the sight of it. He pinches at the bridge of his nose, and half-turns away to strip out of his harness and his belt as Klaus mutters, “I need a place to crash.”

“How’d you get in?” He asks, hanging his things up before turning back to Klaus. He’s grinning again, now, that empty, half-lit thing. Diego doesn’t miss that he hasn’t said no yet, and apparently neither has Klaus.

“Lovely guy named _Al_ let me in.” He says, crossing his skinny ankles over each other as he makes himself more comfortable on the sofa. Diego watches his dirty boots press into the upholstery with exhaustion settling into his bones. “He doesn’t half know a few colourful phrases, huh?”

“What happened to your boyfriend?” Diego asks, ignoring Klaus in favour of pacing through the apartment to the coffee pot. Laboriously, he spoons a few scoops of ground coffee into it, and grabs a half-crushed donut on his way back to the sofa. Well, fuck his sleep, it looks like. He takes a seat in the armchair opposite Klaus and props his boots up on the coffee table, scattering the handful of coins there. “Why can’t you stay with him?” 

Theatrically, Klaus throws his hand to his forehead in a mock-swoon, _GOODBYE_ facing up to the ceiling. “We parted ways.”

The gurgling of the coffee machine fills the room as Diego turns that over in his head. “The one who made the really good osso bucco?”

Klaus sighs. “The very same.”

It’s times like these that Diego wonders if it’s worth it, trying to guide his brother onto a better path. God knows he’s been trying hard for the better part of fifteen years, and God knows he’s been failing harder. “I thought he was nice?” He mumbles, uselessly, and Klaus makes a noncommittal noise. “It couldn’t hurt talking things out with him.”

“Huh.” Klaus replies, eyes rolling in his head as he fixes Diego with a long-suffering look. Diego can’t tell where the bags under his eyes start and the smeared eyeliner ends. “Wow, I never thought about that.”

“I know you’re being sarcastic but you could do worse than listen to me.” Diego snaps, leaning forward in his seat as his annoyance spikes. Klaus gazes up at him from under his lashes, a smile curling the corner of his mouth as he messes with a loose thread at the hem of his shrunken tee. “Sometimes people break up before their time, and all it takes is a little work to get it back on track.” Klaus’ smile stretches, toothy. “I think I know one or two things about fixing up relationships, after all.”

“Do you?” Klaus asks, heaving himself into an upright position as he bugs his eyes at Diego. His smile is still there; brittle and twisting towards mean. “Because it looks to me like you’re still in love with the girl who dumped you five years ago and doesn’t want you back.”

“Hey-”

“Y’know, the girl with the job and the house and the mortgage payments?” Klaus barrels over him, leaning over his knees as he really hits his stride. “So like, excuse me if I don’t take life advice from the guy who lives in a gym boiler room and owns one outfit.” A plastic medical bracelet slides down his skinny arm as he reaches for his pack of smokes, and Diego is helpless to stop him as he lights up a new one; stunned into speechlessness. It wasn’t often that Klaus taps into the more vitriolic side of himself; Diego is used to being teased mercilessly by him but Klaus never gets _mad_ , not really. 

“You’re one to talk.” He mutters, watching as Klaus takes a hard drag from his smoke, eyes flitting everywhere but on Diego. “‘Least I’m not a junkie.”

Klaus scoffs, and crosses one leg over the other as he leans forward to ash into the bowl he’d apparently appropriated as an ashtray. “You wouldn’t have the constitution for it.” He murmurs, and throws a smirk Diego’s way. 

Diego doesn’t respond, just heaves himself up from his seat as the coffee machine chimes, every muscle aching in his body as he crosses the short space between the ’sitting room’ and the kitchenette. “So, just outta rehab, huh?” He murmurs, nodding towards the medical bracelet as he sets a mug down in front of Klaus, who makes grabby hands at it. “How many times is that, now?”

“It’s vulgar to keep count.” Klaus replies, and Diego pretends he doesn’t notice him spiking his own coffee when Diego turns away to grab another donut; a little silver flask that appears seemingly from nowhere and disappears just as mysteriously. Diego makes a grab for the painkillers on the table, his headache pulsing away behind his eyes. Swallows them down with coffee before setting his mug back on the table with an air of finality.

“Fine.” He mutters, and Klaus’ big green eyes light up. “You wanna shower, or somethin’?”

Klaus nods, fast, like Diego’s gonna snatch away the offer if he waits. Any bad feelings that he might have been harbouring after he’d shut down Diego’s burgeoning lecture seem to have dissipated, and he bounds up from the sofa with his mug of coffee clutched in his hand as Diego drags himself off to find him a clean towel. 

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there’s a time and place for the whole Number 2 schtick. Maybe that was half Diego’s problem; the inability to divorce from the power play he’d been raised into. It was hard, communicating like they were real people. It’s why Diego chose to stick to his police radios, to his silent nights in his car; the engine running on a low rumble, the car radio tuned to the late night station. Alone. It was a rare treat, after his whole childhood spent so mixed up with six other kids. Day in, day out. It’s what makes it so difficult to speak to Klaus like they’re both two adults, rather than Number 2 and Number 4. _You’re acting like fucking Luther_ , Klaus had sneered at him once, eighteen and dope sick and fresh from being berated by Diego, who had been more afraid than angry. The barb had stuck in him, that little itch of inadequacy deepening under the shame of treating Klaus like their brother does. Dismissive, disappointed; like Dad. 

The only reason Diego gets away with his occasional lectures to Klaus is that he knows Diego’s never come from the same place that Luther’s lectures used to come from. The only reason Klaus had snapped back tonight was that he had obviously been toeing a line Klaus didn’t want crossed; he’s sober, or on his way there, and Diego can practically see the way his nerves are jangling right under his skin. Too close to the surface for comfort. He feels guilty for ignoring that, for not recognising it in his own haze of exhaustion and disappointment after a hard night, but tries not to let that guilt settle. 

Instead he paces his apartment, strips off the clothes he’s been wearing all night as he listens to Klaus shower. He’s singing along to some song that Diego half recognises, rising up and over the noise of the water, and Diego listens as he unearths an old t-shirt, softened from black to grey with age, and a pair of sweats that are just too long in the leg for him; Diego pulls them on before delving back into his drawers for a change of clothes for Klaus. If he had his way, he’d burn the clothes that Klaus had showed up in, but knows better - he makes a mental note to put a wash on as he paces back through to the kitchen, half-baked ideas about breakfast on his mind. The coffee has woken him up, and his headache is ebbing under the effects of the painkillers; he feels more alert, if achy. Some guy had kicked him so hard in the ribs a few nights ago that he’d bruised terribly, and he’s just testing his side with his fingertips as Klaus emerges from the shower, towel around his waist and another twisted up around his head. He’s whistling, and cuts himself short as he spots Diego and winces. 

“Get into a little trouble last night?” He asks, sidling up to Diego for a closer look. “Nice.”

“Couple nights ago.” Diego grunts, pulling his t-shirt back over the bruise. Klaus rocks back on his heels, his grimace still pulling his face taut. “Breakfast?” Diego says, and his face snaps back into an expression of delight.

“Waffles.” He says, “If you don’t mind,” and wanders away to go avail himself of Diego’s clothes.

Diego busies himself with attempting to find the ingredients that would make waffles, growing increasingly frantic as each cupboard he opens reveals nothing but protein powder and out of date condiments. He picks up a jar of horseradish sauce, and sniffs it gingerly, pulling it away from his nose just as he hears his dresser slide open. “Hey!”

Klaus’ head pops up over the top of it. “What?”

“I laid clothes out for you.” Diego replies, and watches until Klaus grumbles and shuts the drawer, picking up the clothes from the bed. It’s only when he pulls the sweater on does Diego turn away, back to his hunt. 

The fridge turns up nothing but eggs and week old milk. The door rattles with condiments, and Diego pulls a face as he pokes around in there, like moving the five or so items on the shelves around would reveal something new. How does a man in his 20s only have condiments and rapidly softening vegetables to his name? With a grunt, he pulls out the carton of eggs and the hot sauce, and turns around to find Klaus sitting expectantly at the tiny table he eats at; hair still in that ridiculous towel turban, a cigarette between his fingers, looking very washed out between the white towel and Diego’s black sweater. 

“Sorry,” Diego mutters, and hefts the eggs. Klaus’ face falls and he groans, sagging in his seat like a sulky child. “Haven’t had a chance to do groceries.”

“Liar.” Klaus bites out, like he knows a thing about having a routine, let alone finding time to do groceries. But Diego doesn’t say a word. Not when Klaus looks so strung out and sickly and tired. Small, for once, somehow. His eye makeup scrubbed away, Diego’s sweater huge and loose on his skinny frame despite his extra height. He hates seeing Klaus like this, and wants to do anything he can do to try and straighten out the path he’s headed down, but Klaus is so resistant to change that it’s near impossible to do more for him than this. Feed him up, let him crash on his couch for as long as he needs before he gets bored, or tired of having to feign sobriety in front of Diego. It’s only a matter of time before he splits, and after that only a matter of time before he ends up back in rehab, and the whole cycle starts again. But it’s enough to help him out for as long as he will allow before the cycle kicks back in.

Diego hopes that if he tells himself that enough, at some point he’ll start believing it. 

The eggs come out burned, and Klaus turns his nose up at them for a split second before Diego shoves the hot sauce his way, and he rolls his eyes and takes a bite. After that, his appetite seems to kick back in, and Diego sits back with his plate of untouched eggs and watches him wolf his plate down. He eats like he hasn’t seen a meal in days, which Diego realises he probably _hasn’t_. The thought sends a little curl of helplessness through him, and he slides his own plate Klaus’ way when he finished his own. 

“ _Danke_.” Klaus mumbles, mouth full as he smirks and winks. “’S not too bad once your tastebuds take the hint and shut down.”

Diego rolls his eyes over the lip of his coffee mug. “Shuddup.”

Klaus raises his brows, and takes a second between shovelling mouthfuls of hot sauce soaked eggs to quip, “What? It’s true. You obviously didn’t inherit Mom’s cooking skills.”

Diego narrows his eyes at Klaus, who grins at him. “She’s not our biological mother, Klaus. We can’t inherit shit from her.”

“Speak for yourself.” He says, and flutters his eyelashes at Diego with a laugh. “I have her eyes.”

Diego rolls his eyes again at that, but can’t bite back the smile Klaus’ expression makes tug at his mouth. He scoots his chair back from the table to pour himself another coffee just to conceal it. 

Klaus eats the second plate slower, and accepts another coffee that he doesn’t spike this time. The cigarettes seem to be holding him for now, but the tremble of his hands around his fork is telling and Diego knows it’s only a matter of time before the mellow leeches from him and he starts to get bitchy. That mean, ugly kinda comedown. Diego wonders if he’d scored after he’d left rehab or not, or whether he’d been sufficiently dosed up throughout that it doesn’t really matter. He wonders if he really cares. Klaus’ path of addiction feels inexorable, at points. He’s sure his brother can’t even remember the last time he was truly sober, if at all. Diego certainly can’t.

The chair he’s sitting in creaks as he sits back, as old and well-loved as every other piece of furniture in his apartment. Growing up around the wealth their father so casually flaunted had turned him the other way than it had turned Allison; towards hand-me-downs, towards reusing things, towards sidewalk furniture and Craigslist and thrift stores. It meant his apartment was a little mismatched, a little worn in places, but it brought him more joy than that cold, impersonal mausoleum of a house they had all grown up in. It was warm, down here by the boilers; his own personal little cave. Warmed by the creaky pipes, by the sunlight that slants through the high, narrow windows around noon. Silent, but for the pipes and the thudding of the heating coming on; the footsteps overhead. Silent in a way so different to their childhood home, a way that Diego found impossible to pinpoint. The cowed, fearful silence of dinnertime as a teen versus the comfortable silence he had Klaus have lapsed into are worlds apart.

“You still sleeping in the house?” He asks, the ghost of a memory sliding around his head, between his ears. The click-clack of Allison’s little penny loafers on the marble floors. He remembers how afraid he’d been of the stuffed animal heads as a kid, and how Dad had made him stand in front of them until he could meet their distant, glassy gaze. 

_You will not be controlled by fear_ , he had muttered, standing so close behind Diego he could sense the heat of him. He never got close, never touched. Diego still shrunk under his words anyway, worse than a slap. No, he couldn’t be controlled by his fear, unless that fear was wielded by the man who raised them.

Klaus pulls him out of the unpleasant memory, shrugging expansively enough to upset growing pillar of ash on the end of cigarette (the sixth, or the seventh? Diego was beginning to lose track), sending it tumbling onto his plate. He pays it no mind. “Gotta have someplace to go or the clinic won’t sign you out.”

“And did they?” Diego asks, pointedly. Klaus’ grin grows.

“I’m over twenty-one, now. I can sign myself out.”

Diego groans, and Klaus’ smile falters just enough that it makes him glance away, cigarette coming up to conceal the twist of his mouth. “Ever thought about staying sober?” Diego asks, uselessly. 

Klaus shrugs one shoulder, a jerky little movement. He crosses his arms, and his legs follow suit; one bare foot swinging in the air as he hunches into himself. The sleeves of Diego’s sweater are tugged down to his palms; over-large and small at all once on his long, thin frame, and Diego is struck once again by how transformed he is. Somehow he’d missed the point where Klaus’ style had become less self-expression and more _mask_ , but looking at him by the light of day in Diego’s own clothes brings it home for him. Like a snake, those bright colours belying the poison underneath. 

He thinks he likes Klaus better, like this. Just on the right side of a comedown, before he gets real jittery. Not high enough to be an asshole, either. Just his brother, or a shadow of him at least.

“I think about getting sober all the fucking time.” Klaus mutters, finally, and his big green eyes are wet when he throws a self-deprecating smile Diego’s way. He hunches his shoulders, folding himself smaller in the chair as he takes a shuddering drag from his ailing cigarette. The cherry flares, and the room is so silent Diego can hear the burn of it. His brows furrow. “You know how you’re always thinking on your stutter?” He asks. “On your words, like Mom taught you?” Diego inclines his head, and Klaus nods, and his gaze skitters away. “Right, well, me too. But instead of words it’s drugs; where I can score some, what I can sell to catch my next hit. How I’m gonna get sober this time for real, once I run out, once I complete my programme, once I move back home or yell at Dad or stop seeing fucking-” He cuts himself off, and laughs, a humourless noise. “Whatever.”

Diego watches him light a fresh cigarette off of the butt of his old one. “How’d you know I’d let you crash here?” He asks, voice low in the wake of Klaus’ admittance. The question softens the ugly, upset twist to Klaus’ mouth, and he rolls his eyes as he uncurls himself slightly, skinny wrist crooked just so as his cigarette wafts smoke around his head.

“Because you always do.” He mutters, and it’s a testament to his tiredness, to his apparent vulnerability that he’s being so uncharacteristically candid. He cocks his head to the side, eyes following a meandering path around the apartment as Diego watches. His brow furrows. “And because you don’t judge me like Dad, or Luther do when I get out.”

Diego doesn’t know how to respond to that, but he’s spared from needing to as Klaus sticks his smoke between his lips with a grunt, and stands, scraping the chair back over the concrete floor. His bare toes flex against it, cold. “Anyway.” He announces, and grins, that toothy smile hitched back onto his face like he’d never spoken. “You got cable?”

Diego blinks, his tired brain finding it difficult to follow the swift change of topic. “No?”

Klaus sucks his teeth. “Rehab had cable.”

————

Klaus takes a while to settle after breakfast; rattling around Diego’s flat as covertly as possible, trailing cigarette smoke behind him as he does so. Diego keeps an eye on him, posted up in the armchair against the wall, mug of coffee settled burning hot on his sternum as he watches Klaus poke at his bookshelf. It’s not that madcap way he goes through things sometimes, turning it up and down this way and that in a bid to work out the value of the thing, and that settles Diego a little. It wouldn’t be the last time Klaus stole something of his to sell for drug money, and he’s sure it wouldn’t be the last. Somehow he keeps forgiving him, for whatever reason he can’t pinpoint, but probably has something to do with the warm feeling in his chest as he watches Klaus mess with his things. It reminds him of Klaus’ magpie’s nest of a room back in the academy; bowls and baskets and trinket dishes overflowing with bits and pieces he couldn’t bear to throw away. Jewellery and coins and tchotchkes, all sorts of shit. 

Diego takes a sip of his coffee, the one from earlier nuked in the microwave to so far past the recommended drinking temperature that he burns his tongue. “Klaus.” He calls, eyes on the way his brother is turning a weighty little ornamental knife of his over in his hands. He jumps, and sets it back, a guilty set to his mouth as his eyes flick over to where Diego is sat. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing.” He says, holding his hands up as he takes a step away from the bookcase. _HELLO_ and _GOODBYE_ facing up to the pipes in the ceiling. “’S just funny seeing a place that’s all yours.” He shrugs, and turns away, back to trailing cigarette smoke around the small apartment as he works off the jitters Diego can see beginning to set in.

Diego thinks he understands what Klaus means, by that. The academy had never been a home, really. The silent mealtimes. The half hour of play. The uniforms, the rules. Not a home, especially not for him, for some reason he’s never been able to unpack fully. Maybe with enough years for him to fully stew in the intricacies of his anger he will, but the wound of it still feels too fresh to him, even now. Six years removed after leaving at eighteen, and still bitter over how he’d never been able to settle like his siblings had. Klaus, and his trinkets, and his walls of scrawled poetry from the year he’d read his first Ginsberg poem. Allison, with her headshots and her posters, and Luther with his model airplanes and record collection. Even Vanya managed to fill her tiny room to the gills with things that made her _her_. Diego had had nothing, except Mom, and a locked box of throwing knives slipped under his single bed. 

He doesn’t think about Ben and Five’s rooms. Better not to dwell than to linger on the crypt-like atmosphere of all their things under a thin layer of dust, until Mom cleaned and the rooms were painfully lived in again, for a time.

When Diego had moved out he’d been so overwhelmed by all the freedom that he felt he’d regressed, slightly. After all, didn’t he wear the same shit every day, still? Klaus had obviously gone the opposite way, but Diego had always considered himself a creature of habit. Turns out it’s not as simple as moving out and distancing himself from the rules, the uniforms, the fear. Everything still clung to him, the dark bruise of his childhood. 

Klaus settles, eventually; cross legged on the sofa with a cigarette burning down between his fingers, his tarot cards and that maddening little flask set on the table in front of him. He was done being subtle, it seemed. As if smoking cigarettes like they were the last thing keeping him together was subtle. Diego supposes he has to be grateful it’s just alcohol, his mind settling easily into those old mental gymnastics that always seem to surface around Klaus. 

He takes a seat too, leaning forward over his knees as he watches Klaus cut the cards, eyes on his task and cigarette wobbling in his mouth. Diego catches another glimpse of those tattoos, those morbid things that Klaus had thought so funny when he’d gotten them at eighteen. Blurrier, now, with age. Turned grey and worn just like Diego’s favourite old shirt.

“Do you regret those tattoos?” He asks, eyes settled now on the umbrella tattoo jutting just slightly from the sleeve of Klaus’ appropriated sweater. He touches his thumb to his own, mind turning over.

Klaus doesn’t even look up. “Do you regret piercing your nipple like a teenage girl?” He cocks his brow, considering, and then mumbles around his smoke, “Or a fifty year old swinger?” Diego gapes at him, until Klaus glances up through his damp curls, and grins at him. “Wanna reading?”

Diego wants badly to rise to Klaus’ bait, even if he always means to try harder to resist it. His tiredness holds him back easier than his own half-hearted attempts to do better, whatever that’s supposed to mean; renders him toothless so all he can muster is a shrug, slumped back in the armchair as he watches Klaus reach for his flask, medical bracelet skating down his skinny arm to fetch up against the base of his broad palm. 

“You’re still into them?” He asks, setting his coffee on the table so he can rest his chin in his hands. He rolls his shoulders, trying to work the stiffness from them. 

“Sure,” Klaus quips, setting his flask down in favour of scooping up his cards. His hands make easy, practised moves as he shuffles them, effortless as he turns his gaze to Diego. He’s smirking, and Diego can’t help but think whatever’s in that flask must’ve gone to his head quick because it’s sloppy, strung crooked across his face. “I wanna get into like, voodoo and all that shit. Reanimate a few corpses and that, but.” He shrugs, and glances back down at his cards. “Turns out you gotta start small first.”

“Surely reanimating corpses isn’t far from your speciality.” Diego offers, and Klaus’ brows practically climb into his hairline.

“Oh no, if I reanimated them I dare say they’d give me a little more _space_.” He says, snapping the last part like it’s pointed; eyes darting to the corner of the room. Diego follows his gaze: catching up on nothing but Diego’s coat rack and mirror, standing there innocently enough. When he glances back, Klaus’ attention is firmly back on his cards; Diego settles into the armchair to watch him. 

Klaus has had the same pack of tarot cards since he was a kid. Dad had given them to him in what had first seemed a very uncharacteristic moment of generosity which had later revealed to be an entirely calculated move. Their intention was training wheels, of sorts. That little extra help in Klaus harnessing the powers that seemingly so eluded and terrified him. Training wheels, only he’d never outgrown them, to their father’s great disappointment. They’re battered and faded and dirty, now, and probably pushing fifteen years old, but Diego has to respect how he’d managed to keep a hold of them through all his countless stints in rehab and his time on the streets. It shows a real attachment to them that goes beyond his love of hoarding any pretty thing that passes the end of his nose; a commitment Diego can understand. These tools of their childhood turned personal talismans. He wonders what that says about them, and their inability to fully divorce from that life, but decides it’s not something he’s prepared to confront this side of twenty-five.

Klaus hands the cards to him, and Diego cuts the deck; the ritual still fresh in his mind from their childhood hangouts after lights out. Klaus used to sneak into his room at night, and practise his readings while Diego drifted in and out of sleep. It doesn’t feel very much different now, flipping over the first card of each stack before going back to lounging in the armchair, all wrapped up in the preternatural heat and silence of his little basement room. Exhaustion is making his eyes heavy, and Klaus seems to notice, a smile Diego would peg as _fond_ and Klaus would deny, spreading over his face.

“Long night?” He asks, one black-nailed finger tapping lightly on the first card. His past. Diego doesn’t look yet, watching through heavy-lidded eyes.

“Mm.” He grunts, and then heaves himself up straighter, his muscles protesting the movement. “Long. Fuckin’ useless.”

Klaus taps the card one more time, and as he draws his hand back he grabs at his flask. “How come?” He asks, and Diego squints, pinning him with a suspicious look.

“You really wanna know?”

Klaus holds his hands up, eyes wide. “I really wanna know.”

Diego exhales, cracking his knuckles in his lap, one by one until he shrugs, “Okay.” He mutters, “Alright.” He feels he can’t hide his surprise that Klaus is asking after him, and knows that Klaus is too perceptive not to clock it. It’s not that Diego doubts that Klaus _cares_ , so to say, but he clearly has a lot going on right now so Diego can’t quite understand why he’d wanna know. He clears his throat, nonetheless. “”S a goddamn waste.” He says, “Ain’t what it used to be, anymore. Shit used to be _easy_ when we were kids. It made sense, right?”

Klaus inclines his head, drawing one shoulder up in a shrug. His eyes are still on the cards, and Diego wonders for a moment if he’s even listening; whether he’s tuning Diego out as he communes with the cards or whatever the fuck he does, and finds that he doesn’t care. The floodgates feel opened, suddenly, under the press of his exhaustion and the sheer amount of time since he’s been able to talk to another person who could _understand_. 

“It feels like since I failed getting into the police academy, every single goddamn thing’s gone wrong.” He bites out, dragging his hands over his face with a groan. He feels beat up, like raw fucking mincemeat, and he digs his fingers into his eyes until he sees stars. “This shit just ain’t the same but I dunno what to do if it ain’t this.” 

Klaus hums, and when Diego lets his hands drop he finds his brother looking at him with something close to understanding in his expression. His admittance is embarrassing, making his gut churn as he draws his knees to his chest, slouching back deeper into the armchair as Klaus shrugs, and mutters, “I get it. It’s hard to quit on something that’s ingrained in you.”

“I’m not like you.” Diego snaps, and Klaus grins at him. “There’s no comparison.”

“There’s a _little_ comparison, _bruder_.” Klaus murmurs, voice rich with amusement as Diego makes a frustrated noise. “Addiction is addiction, Diego.”

The cards lie forgotten on the table, seeming to pulse in the low light. Diego scrubs a hand over his eyes, his tiredness getting the best of him. He feels oddly exposed; vulnerable from the admittance of his own struggles. With Klaus it was easy to push aside your worries for the bigger picture, which was of course helping him out of whatever situation he had gotten himself into. Easier to do that than face the realisation that Diego’s taste for vigilantism was waning rapidly with each passing night full of nothing but the sound of static and the odd thug’s boot connecting solidly with his ribcage. 

“Can you just read my fucking fortune.” He mumbles, muffled behind his palms, and he squeezes his eyes shut for one long, dragging moment before he forces himself out of his funk. Resentment flows through him like a second bloodstream, but it’s easier to push it down and forget than it is to confront. “Please, Klaus.”

Klaus reads his fucking fortune, and Diego emerges from the cover of his hands to watch him. The ritual has always fascinated him, as well as how Klaus can so fluently draw meaning from cards that mean next to nothing for Diego. He doesn’t know how good he is, either. Shaky on the future, but so solid on the past that it aches; sends Diego wandering away to grab the final donut from the packet just to give himself some time away from the truth. He’d pulled The Tower, and Klaus had spun such a tale of unexpected change and terrible damage that Diego still felt the sting of it as he breezed over the present, (The Wheel of Fortune, reversed, to which Klaus had insisted meant a breaking from a negative cycle but Diego doubted heavily), before landing on the future; struck silent in his indecision. 

The reading of the future has been the sticking point for Klaus since before Diego could remember a time before the cards. He didn’t attempt to know why, but he’s sure it lies in the same realm as Klaus’ struggles with some of the bigger parts of his powers. Beyond fortune telling, beyond the seeing of ghosts. That untapped potential their father has always been so insistent upon. 

The Moon gazes up at them from the mess of Diego’s coffee table, her brow turned down amongst the sticky rings of coffee and loose change, the old wilting pot plant that Diego has been trying and failing to keep alive for months. Klaus’ black-nailed hands on either side of it, like the proximity could help him glean any information easier.

“I’m getting, illusion.” He murmurs, fingers flexing on the coffee table as he makes a frustrated noise. “Like nothing’s gonna be what it seems. You’re gonna have to trust in your intuition, and,” He shrugs, and screws up his face, eyes pinned somewhere distant as his jaw works. “Like everything’s all different on the surface but if you scratch it the past and the future are gonna be running along right underneath.”

“Illusion?” Diego prompts, and Klaus sucks his teeth, glancing back at the card.

“Letting go of the past to help the future.” He murmurs, and his nail scratches at the surface of the coffee table. “I can’t make sense of it.”

Diego allows a beat of silence to pass before he says, “You’re getting better at the future stuff.”

Klaus beams at him, settling back into the sofa cushions as he tries to play it off, like he isn’t grinning harder than Diego’s seen him smile in a long time. A real smile, not that horrible toothy humourless thing. “Well,” He says, showy as he cocks his eyebrow and looks away, “Recently I learned in rehab that I have a future.” He glances towards the cards, and edges his grin closer to something sardonic. “Did y’know that?”

———

Diego showers, after his tarot reading is over and Klaus seems to have exhausted himself. The grime of being up all night feels seeped into his pores; Diego scrubs at himself under the lukewarm water, and the shower is so badly needed that he barely resents Klaus for using up all the hot water before him. Barely. 

Klaus is still sat in the same position when Diego emerges, towelling his hair dry as his eyes slide right the sofa, to Klaus’ hunched, spindly figure. That knee jerk reaction to check on him that he’s never been able to kick. 

“Alright, bud?” He asks, stepping further into the room as Klaus jumps, as if startled out of a deep reverie. His flask is dangling loosely from his fingers, between his knees. Diego guesses it’s empty, judging by the slight glaze over his eyes. 

“Peachy.” He mumbles, a half-lit smile strung across his face. Weak, watery sunlight is coming through the tiny windows high up in the wall; transforming the subterranean space. Klaus looks pale by it. Thin; and his hair is an overlong mass of curls from his shower, making his face seem even more gaunt in comparison. His leg is bouncing; jittering under the coffee table he’s hunched over, and Diego can practically see the silent turn of his thoughts towards something more maudlin. Or perhaps towards drugs, though the line between the two was blurring more and more every time Diego saw him. He isn’t sure where the fun had stopped for Klaus, or whether he knew it’d stopped at all.

All of a sudden, it hits Diego how completely exhausted he is. 

“C’mon,” He mumbles, grabbing at a t-shirt as he crosses over to where Klaus is sat brooding. He reaches for the tarot deck, still sitting half spread out across the coffee table, and Klaus follows his movements curiously as Diego settles back into his armchair seat across from him and begins to shuffle the deck. “Let’s do another.”

“You wanna read them?” Klaus asks, voice bordering on bemused as he glances between Diego’s face and his cards. He half looks like he wants to rip them back from him; fingers clutched around his knees, and it’s a testament to his trust in Diego that he doesn’t. Once, when they were kids, he’d thrown a fit when Luther had stolen them to look at the pictures.

“Sure.” Diego says, with more bravado than he feels. He cocks an eyebrow, forcing a grudging smile from Klaus. “How hard can it be, right? I’ve been your guinea pig for years; I shoulda picked something up.” Klaus doesn’t look convinced, but Diego hands the cards to him regardless. “C’mon, cut ‘em.”

“Great bedside manner.” Klaus mumbles, amused, and his grin grows when Diego snatches the cards back, and shuffles them again.

“Fine.” He says, pleased by the smile breaking out on Klaus’ face. He hands the cards back again, slower. “Could you please cut the cards, _sir?_ ”

Klaus’ lowers his head in a half bow, and accepts the cards with a smile on his face this time. “Certainly.” He murmurs, and cuts the cards with an ease borne of complete familiarity. 

Breaking character for a moment, Diego asks wryly, “You know which cards are up, don’t you?”

“I believe _that_ ,” Klaus says, eyes on the cards as he lays them down. “Would be telling.”

Diego has little knowledge of tarot beyond watching Klaus with them his whole life, but the point isn’t accuracy; instead it’s to cheer Klaus up, and so he forges ahead into the murky waters of making a fool of himself with a sigh, clasping his hands together as he leans forward to study the cards. “I will start with the future.” He announces, and Klaus’ eyes flash with a wicked kind of amusement as he grins. 

“Unconventional.” He says, and a glance down at the card has his brows pulling together, the smile sliding from his face slightly.

“Three of swords.” Diego announces, carefully, watching as Klaus’ expression shifts. He taps it, once, “I can never remember the minor ones.”

“They’re hard,” He says, absently, like he’s not staring at the card like it’s some sort of dreadful harbinger. “I rarely pull anything but major.”

“Are you okay?” Diego asks, and Klaus finally wrenches his gaze from the spread. His frown stays, eyes flitting away as Diego watches him school his expression into something blandly neutral. He smiles.

“Yeah,” He shrugs, and reaches for his pack of cigarettes. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “What a fuckin’ card, huh? Sure it’s not my present?”

“What’s it mean?” 

Klaus shrugs a shoulder, gesturing with his newly lit cigarette as he exhales smoke. “Mm. Heartbreak.” He says, and crosses his leg over his knee. “Grief.”

It’s never a good sign when the normally so verbose Klaus begins talking in one word answers. Ignoring the headache beginning to pulse once more behind his eyes, Diego forges bravely forward. “Well, scratch that. Maybe Dad dies, huh? Wouldn’t that be fuckin’ nice.”

Klaus inclines his head, the ghost of a sardonic smile on his lips. “Wouldn’t it just.”

Diego fucks up the present; the three of cups, and lets Klaus correct him on it, his voice growing more confident with every little _uh huh?_ Diego throws his way. Sometimes it’s nice to be good at something, to know more than somebody. God knows Diego loves the feeling, and so it follows that Klaus would too. It feels odd to watch Klaus operate on any level of surety about something, but Diego likes it, especially as it seems to be pulling him out of the funk he’s rapidly slipping into, covert flask or not.

“Now you know that I’d never want to banish the energy of the cards telling me I’m gonna be liquored up soon,” Klaus says, cigarette casting a veil over his head, catching in the light flowing through the windows above them. Without looking at a clock, Diego can tell it’s steadily inching towards noon. He can tell in the angle of the sunlight, and in the feeling of his heartbeat behind his eyes. “But it’s more about like, going to a rave alone and throwing up for three hours afterwards and ruining your favourite pair of pants.” He gestures vaguely with his cigarette, and Diego’s gaze pulls up short on a plastic takeout bag half stashed under the coffee table. The little yellow smiley face grins vacantly at him.

“Klaus don’t tell me you’ve got puke covered pants in there.” Diego mutters, and Klaus just blinks innocently at him.

“Didn’t have the quarters to do laundry.”

“Do you know how frustrating you are?” Diego asks him, and Klaus’ grin grows. 

They abandon the past, a reversed Page of Pentacles whose meaning alludes Diego, and that Klaus refuses to expand on. 

“I’m tired.” Klaus announces, knee still jittering away under the coffee table even as he slumps back against the sofa cushions, a hand thrown over his face either for dramatic measure or the true need to block out the daylight streaming into the room. Diego decides it’s a little from column A and a little from column B, and stands, knees cracking as he groans; every ache and pain waking up in him from his lack of sleep, from his deep bruise and his morning spent hunched over tarot cards. He stretches with a grunt, back popping, and Klaus makes a sound of disgust. “You know I hate when you do all that,” He flaps his free hand, cigarette ash fluttering down onto his (Diego’s) black shirt. He swipes at it, blindly, leaving grey streaks in his wake. “Crunching.”

“You know I hate when you smoke in my house.” Diego counters, and Klaus just scoffs.

“’S a boiler room.”

Diego ignores him; busying himself with finding a spare sheet and tugging a pillow off of his bed for Klaus, who is already nodding off even as Diego eases the half-smoked cigarette from between his fingers and crushes it out in the dish-turned-ashtray.

“Don’t bolt when you wake up.” He says, though he knows Klaus is barely listening. Caught halfway between a doze and wakefulness, Klaus brings a clumsy hand to pat at Diego’s face. 

“No promises.” He says, smile spreading lazily as Diego rolls his eyes and pulls away from him. 

“Just stay for breakfast, lunch,” He shrugs, “Whatever, fuck. I need some sleep.”

Klaus doesn’t respond, just shoots him a half-hearted finger gun, his expression unreadable behind the sheet he’s pulled up around himself. Diego watches him a second longer, and then turns away, his headache pounding away behind his eyes as he squeezes them shut, drags his hands over his face. They feel like sandpaper, like two hot coals in his face, and a painkiller would probably be a good combat against all the coffee and the exhaustion piling into this mother of all headaches building on him right now but all he can do is take the ten steps to his bed and throw himself onto the mattress. 

Sleep doesn’t come easy, not with all the emotions and the dragged up memories of the morning, but when it does he sleeps in fits and starts, half awake and ears pricked for any sound that could be Klaus leaving. Once, he jerks awake at what he thinks is a hand on his shoulder, but a glance at the sofa finds Klaus snoring away on it, and so Diego settles back into his uncomfortable, uneasy sleep. 

He dreams of dusty childhood rooms, and the thud of a knife hitting deep into wood echoing through them.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! title taken from the first part of howl by allen ginsberg


End file.
